El nino

2022 - 12 - 23

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Image courtesy of "WIRED"

El Niño Is Coming—and the World Isn't Prepared (WIRED)

Global heating will set the stage for extreme weather everywhere in 2023. The consequences are likely to be cataclysmic.

The heat could exceed the blistering 40°C mark again in the UK, and for the first time, top 50°C in parts of Europe. La Niña tends to limit hurricane development in the Atlantic, so as it begins to fade, hurricane activity can be expected to pick up. Inevitably, higher temperatures will mean that severe drought will continue to be the order of the day, slashing crop yields in many parts of the world. Whether or not it becomes hot enough for a fully fledged El Niño to develop, 2023 has a very good chance—without the cooling influence of La Niña—of being the hottest year on record. Current forecasts suggest that La Niña will continue into early 2023, making it—fortuitously for us—one of the longest on record (it began in Spring 2020). According to NASA, 2022 was one of the hottest years ever recorded on Earth.

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Image courtesy of "Ravalli Republic"

Watershed Wellness: Who are 'El Niño' and 'La Niña'? (Ravalli Republic)

And, of course, weather patterns affect water and fire systems, ecosystems at large, and entire economies. Understanding these climatic episodes helps ...

In Montana, La Niña effects are generally preferred to the El Niño effects, which are more likely to bring warmer, drier episodes, and intensified periods of drought. The cycle and duration of El Niño and La Niña events can vary greatly – they do not occur on a regular schedule. Learn more about the Water Forum and their education and restoration programs at The process of La Niña, meaning ‘little girl’ in Spanish, is caused by “a build-up of cooler-than-normal waters in the tropical Pacific, the area of the Pacific Ocean between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn” according to National Geographic. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), we are in the midst of our third La Niña winter – bringing a colder, wetter (snowier) winter to Montana. the cascading causes and effects get a bit more complicated after that when we start considering how sub- and surface ocean temperatures, wind patterns, air temperatures, humidity, and even more factors interact with and influence each other.

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